


Its Just a Jump and a Twist

by AntivanCrafts



Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Back to the beginning, F/F, time travel hijinks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-05
Updated: 2017-11-27
Packaged: 2018-10-15 00:23:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10546866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AntivanCrafts/pseuds/AntivanCrafts
Summary: Post Trespasser, an aging Leliana is given an offer to return to the time of the blight. There is so much to lose but even more to gain, and every decision is a splinter in her heart.





	1. Chapter 1

Days and months fled after the defeat of Corypheus, each one growing all the harder to keep hold of. There was always one more task to do, one more threat to Divine Victoria’s life that demanded her attention. Perhaps Leliana shouldn’t have been surprised, then, to look up and find that it had been fourteen years since the death of her love. For a moment, she stared at the date she had scrawled unthinkingly on the top of the latest missive, ink gathering on the tip of the pen she’d left hovering over the parchment, something like fear and entirely like guilt twisting her heart in a cold fist. 

She flinched at the soft sound of ink hitting the parchment, even that too loud to her ears. She looked down at the dark, spreading stain, and for a moment she was somewhere else, years and miles away. Her mouth parted, but too many years of leashing her every word kept all but the smallest, breathless noise of distress from her mouth. A younger woman, a freer woman, may have dropped her pen, but Leliana did not. She carefully laid it aside in its proper place before she allowed herself the small weakness of closing her eyes, gloved hands coming up to press against the clench of her eyelids until purple stars burst and died.

Fourteen years.

Had it really been that long? Some days it felt longer. Sometimes she could swear it had not even been a day. That she would look across the room and see Amleda writing in the journal she had never been apart from, the long twist of her braid tumbling down to pool in her lap. She never raised her eyes. Fooling herself in that way was not a luxury she allowed herself anymore. Amleda herself had taught her that, though she hadn’t meant to.

Leliana pulled her hands away and blinked dry eyes down at the missive. It would be easier if she could cry. Crying felt cleaner. More honest. Maybe that was why she didn’t. Couldn’t. She had been neither of those things in a very long time. Without it, there was no excuse for not getting her work done, she reminded herself. There was no mess to be cleaned up, no shoulder to cry on, just a pause and a soft, silent sigh at the press of years upon her shoulders, drifting higher and higher like drifting snow. She finished the missive, then the next, and the three following that before she pushed away from her writing desk. She lifted the candle and brought it with her to the small room just beside Victoria’s. It occurred to her just outside of it to check for intruders, but she did not. Simply entered and readied herself for bed.

She had her own protections in place, but at this moment, she found she did not care. Brushed out hair that had grown long, grown long threads of silver that clung to her fingers and tumbled slowly away when she pulled them free. She did not watch. In the morning, they would be gone, whisked away by attending servants she rarely saw. Placed aside her blades and laid herself down in soft, perfumed sheets that swallowed her whole.

Sleep eluded her for hours. Too many old thoughts had her twist and turn until the sheets were twisted up around her, pinning her in place until anxiety flared, but sleep she did.

In her dreams, Amleda danced. Her outflung hands traced patterns she almost thought she could see. Her heart ached to see her the way she had been, bright and bold and alive, and Leliana found herself gasping for a breath she could not find. It was dizzying, or maybe it was the sight of Amleda looking across the spaces between them, mouth parting around smiling words she could not not hear, but felt.

_Come dance with me._

Amleda gave that imperious toss of her head that had always made Leliana laugh, but that now made her want to catch hold of it and keep it close. She avidly watched every tiny flash of expression on Amleda’s face, even as she shook her head. “You know I can’t,” she murmured through numb lips.

_Because I’m dead?_ Amleda gave a laugh she couldn’t hear but that made the air shiver. _Who told you that?_

Leliana opened her mouth, then paused, face twisting in a well worn frown. “I- I’m not sure,” she said slowly. It was hard to think clearly. Trying felt like swimming upstream. An exhausting effort with disappointing results.

Amleda approached, dark eyes glittering with that smile she’d missed, but why? Hadn’t she been here this whole time? _What if I told you that we could dance again?_

“I would ask the price,” Leliana said automatically, and gave a hesitant smile when Amleda laughed, a smile that felt unnatural on her face after all these years.

_Still so suspicious! But correct, as always. There is a price. Everything worth having comes at a cost. The only question is if you are willing to pay it._

Leliana hesitated. Almost opened her mouth to question, but if there had ever been someone she had more faith in than Andraste herself, it was the woman before her now. She reached out and took Amleda’s hand. “Whatever it is, it’s worth it,” she said without hesitation.

She did not look away from Amleda as the world started to bleed away around her, losing color and definition, but always, ever, there was Amleda. _Oh, my love_ , Amleda said mournfully as Leliana’s consciousness started to drift away, _you will regret those words._


	2. Chapter 2

Leliana opened her eyes to an unfamiliar ceiling.

Before she was even fully awake Leliana had flung herself off the side of the bed, darting a hand beneath the pillow for the dagger she always kept there even as she fell into a crouch. Long seconds passed with no sound or movement, but that didn’t mean anything. Her eyes snapped around the room, cataloging its contents and dismissing them in turn as nonthreatening before moving on, only to slow to a stop. She went still, wheels turning over in her mind. This place was unsettlingly familiar, in a way that nagged at her, demanding her attention. She dismissed such thoughts and tightened her hold on her blade, only to tense anew. The grip felt wrong in her hands.

She risked a glance down. She wasn’t holding her usual dagger, a gift from Divine Victoria, but a common, cheaply made one whose wrappings had clearly been well cared for but replaced often. Leliana's upper lip curled away from her teeth in a silent snarl. Someone thought they were very clever. Very soon, they wouldn't be thinking at all, courtesy of the very blade they had been foolish enough to leave her.

She rose just slightly, enough to twist aside the curtain over the room's lone window. A single look outside confirmed that she was no longer in Val Royeaux, or indeed, judging by the conversations of those passing by below, Orlais at all. They had Ferelden accents. Wonderful. And what's worse, that discomforting feeling hadn't left her, was in fact growing stronger. Something wasn't right here, more than the obvious. She narrowed her eyes, watching a knot of people hurrying past. They seemed agitated, speaking rapidly and with the tight pinch to their voices that would have put her on edge if she hadn't been already. She drew away from the window, and searched the room's sparse contents. Her usual cowl and day clothes were folded up at the foot of the bed, along with a bow, of similar quality as the dagger. Generous. Whoever had brought her here had done so at great cost, as kidnapping someone of her skills and standing and moving them across the border was no mean feat, but to then skimp on her gear? She wasn't sure whether to take it as an insult or not, but spite had gotten her this far, no reason to stop now.   
  
She dressed quickly, stowing away the weapons --even shoddy weapons were better than none at all-- and left her room. She found herself in a long hall flanked by rows of doors. An inn, then, similar to any you would find on any well traveled road. A look up and down the hall confirmed that it was not a particularly extravagant one, reinforcing the idea of her kidnapper being a skinflint. She gave a snort and put the room at her back, resolving to do the same to this whole situation as quickly as possible. Whoever had removed her from play was very good, which did not spell anything good for the continued health and happiness of the Divine. At best, she would be mocked for years to come about letting her guard down. At worst...

Frowning, Leliana started down the hall towards a staircase, quickening her steps at the unmistakable sounds of battle coming from down to stairs. She drew her blade and leaned over the railing, unwilling to rush into a battle she knew nothing about. Until, that was, the words "Kill the grey wardens!" rose above the tumult. That decided things marvelously. Hefting her blade, Leliana threw herself down the stairs and into the boiling press of men and woman. They didn't appear to notice her at first, too focused on the brightly armored wardens battling at the center of the fight, but after three of their number dropped silently away before her, that changed. They turned to face her, creating a gap so that she could see their targets for the first time. 

Things moved very slowly, after that, then very fast.

For the space of a thousand years, Leliana stared, transfixed, at Amleda Tabris. She was laughing, the long coil of her braid arcing through the air in her passing like a ripple, always where she was not. And, behind her, Alistair. He looked so young, strong and unwrinkled, carving swathes through those before him in a way that would have had the Alistair she knew struggling. Leliana forgot how to breathe. And then the moment was over. Sound rushed back, and she did not have the luxury of admiring the situation further, and neither did they. Whirling to the side, Leliana drew her blade up the closest man's face, and then into his chest when he threw up his hands. She picked her way through those between her and the wardens, attempting to focus on those before her, without much success. She left holes in her defenses that cost her, and by the time the fight was over, Leliana was panting, pockmarked with cuts. They were superficial, cutting more at her pride than anything, and easily put out of her mind when she found herself standing before Amleda and Alistair.

She stood there for a short while, trying to steady her breath, trying not to look too eager. Too long. Amleda and Alistair were exchanging looks. Shoving down the rising panic that threatened to smother her, Leliana sheathed her dagger and spread her hands. "Please forgive my manners," she said smoothly, only the benefit of long years of practice keeping the crack out of her voice. "You must think me terribly rude for interrupting your fun."

"Fun?" Alistair asked, and Leliana couldn't quite manage to hold back a smile at the incredulous tone in his voice, a reminder of older, sweeter times. "You think this is fun? Or were you referring to the running and the screaming?"

"You might have been running and screaming," Amleda grinned at him, panting only slightly, and shoved at his shoulder. " _I_ was calm, cool, collected. And very interested in _you_ , miss...?"

"Leliana," Leliana said after the briefest pause, and held out her hand. Instead of shaking hands, Amleda gripped her forearm in the way of warriors, and gave her a dizzyingly bright smile.

"Leliana. I'm Amleda, and confused. Grateful, don't think I'm not, but in my experience, human women don't often throw themselves headfirst into a fight on my account."

Leliana let out a surprised laugh. She still held onto Amleda's arm, and reluctantly let go, not wanting to disturb her. Whatever was going on, whatever dream she was having, she wanted to spend as long as possible with her. And that meant not being creepy. Even if she woke up in five minutes, they would be sweet ones. "Maybe you just haven't been spending them around the right women."

Amleda's brown skin darkened slightly, and she turned her head to cough into her fist. Alistair didn't appear to notice. "You mean ones with head wounds?" He drawled. "Or o-" He paused. It was his turn to look awkward.

"Old?" Leliana gave a huff of a laugh and drew up a hand to cup her chin. “Are you always this charming, or are you trying _really_ hard?"

"Maybe both," Amleda interrupted before Alistair could rise to his own defense. "And as hilarious as mocking Alistair is-"

"Hey!"

"-you still didn't answer my question."

Leliana wavered, swiftly choosing and discarding several options in favor of what would garner the best result. She remembered when she had been fully honest with this woman, and wondered at the change. "I heard them call you grey wardens," she settled on. "I have a, ah. Call it a debt I must repay."

"To the wardens?"

"The very same," Leliana smiled, feeling the edges dig into her cheeks in a way that was all too familiar. "The choice, of course, is up to you. I would not press myself on anyone who did not enjoy my company."

Amleda opened her mouth, let it shut, then let out a strangely high pitched laugh. "I don't think you have to worry about that."

Leliana's smile faltered, and she did her best to salvage it, but. He was right. She _was_  getting older, where Amleda was still shy of her twenty-fifth birthday. She hadn't had the breath to spare to consider that. In her other dreams, she'd always been the same age she'd been when they'd first met, and now...

Amleda was looking at her curiously, and Leliana did her best to shrug off the cold creeping up her chest with a breezy wave of her hand. "So is that a yes?" She asked, and for a moment was unsure what she wanted the answer to be, whether even being here, dreaming this, was wrong. Was obscene. This time had passed, and lingering on it was a waste of time and energies better spent elsewhere. But linger she did, and when Amleda told Alistair that he'd just have to settle for _two_ older women bossing him around instead of just one, Leliana wondered if that mattered at all.


	3. Chapter 3

Leliana fell easily into step beside Amleda and Alistair, letting their banter roll over her as they spoke to people spread throughout the inn. Perhaps too easily, she thought ruefully. Tried to force herself to remember that this was a passing fancy, and a selfish one at that, but it was a losing battle. The years fell away with every step. Things she had forgotten, small, wondrous things, made her catch her breath. The slight hitch to Amleda's step, the way Alistair tended to hunch. She tried to commit every detail to memory. Hung back, feeling her face twist as she watched the pair tease and prod at each other. They were close enough to touch, she was, and still Leliana did not move. Obscene it may have been, selfish certainly, but she did not want this dream to end, despite her growing unease. Details were coming back, and the possibility that this dream was magical in nature, that she was in thrall to a demon, was all too real. But looking at Amleda now, she found it hard to care. She would, and soon, but for this one, short moment, she didn't want to be strong.

_Let me have this,_ she whispered to nothing and no one. Certainly not the Maker or his bride. This was not their work. They would not be so cruel.

She pulled up a smile when Amleda turned back around, searching her out in the crowd. Long habit had Leliana automatically drop behind and to Amleda's side, as was proper for when walking with the Divine, and it took her several moments to consciously adjust her step. By that time, they had emerged from the inn and into the overbright sunlight. While she was adjusting, blinking rapidly and tucking her hood down further, there came a skeptical snort from off to the side that came straight from memory. Leliana turned, her heart leaping into her throat. There stood Morrigan, looking like she had stepped right out the stories that had spread of her after the blight, tall and tossing back her head in a leonine arch that she had seen in person just the day before. Beside her was Amleda's mabari, Cookie, dead these long years. 

Sparing Morrigan a brief nod, Leliana dropped to her knees beside Cookie and held out a shaking hand to smell. "Hello, old girl," she whispered, and gave a soft, wet laugh when Cookie nudged at her hand, asking for a pet. So she did. Even through her gloves, Cookie felt warm. Real. Leliana shuddered and closed her eyes.

"Delighted to make your acquaintance," Morrigan said sarcastically at her back, then, "Do you miss my mother that much, warden, that you decided to pick up a matching set?"

"I thought it would annoy you," Amleda said with what Leliana knew without looking would be one of those easy shrugs that had so infuriated Morrigan early in their relationship. "And really, isn't that a good enough reason to do anything?"

That earned her a sigh, and Leliana finally looked up to see Morrigan scoff, not quite able to hide the beginnings of a smile crinkling her eyes. "Do as you will, but may it be on your head when she-"

"Makes us put on extra layers?" Alistair asked, lifting his brows, earning another, longer sigh.

"Enough! Let us be on our way." Morrigan snapped, sounding flustered, and despite herself, Leliana could not quite stifle a chuckle. It had been so long since Morrigan had been so easily riled up. But then, she remembered, this had marked one of the first times Morrigan had shared words with anyone besides her mother, and shook her head as she pushed herself to her knees.

The group moved towards the edges of a village that no longer existed in Leliana's time, or at least, not as it now was. She tried her best to look as casually about her as possible, taking in the people and buildings and animals that would soon be silenced. She found herself murmuring a prayer for the dead, lifting a hand for her broach. Touching it was a comfort, if a small one. This, if nothing else, was worth everything. Bearing witness to lives many had forgotten. She promised herself that, when she awoke, she would send a letter to Alistair to discuss what could be done to mark such places. Perhaps a royal visit to each of the villages lost to the blight. Make it personal, where a simple decree or a plaque would not be. That would take quite a bit of doing to manage, and Leliana amused herself for several minutes calculating out the expenses. 

By the time she was done, they had meandered over to Sten's gibbet, and once more Leliana had to marvel. The last time she had seen the arishok, seen Sten, he had had deep wrinkles carved into the planes of his face, the bright purple of his eyes started to fade. The one who stood before them now bore only a superficial resemblance to that man. Amleda spoke briefly to him, and once more Leliana tried and failed to stifle a laugh at his dry responses. Oh, how she had missed him. Missed all of them, and for a moment she allowed herself to close her eyes and simply listen to them, the rise and fall of beloved voices that would never be heard again.

She opened them to find that Amleda had led the group towards the chantry, in search of the key to the gibbet. Leliana followed, though her steps were slowed, reluctant. She had forgotten this. Hadn't thought she would stand once more in the chantry that had given her sanctuary when she had desperately needed it, look upon people who had laughed with her- or at her, she allowed. Time had softened that sting, but even so, dread crept across her heart. The revered mother would recognize her, even aged as she was now. Whether this was a dream or not, that could not be allowed to happen. There would be questions, ones she was not prepared to answer. No, best to remain silent, a shadow in what had once been a home to her. Not quite a stranger, but not a sister. Not anymore.

She hung back as the others made their way towards the revered mother's rooms, instead turning her eye towards the rows of candles and, beyond them, the books. Her fingers itched to save them from what would come, but- no. More questions, with fewer answers. It was easier to light candles for the dead. Not so many as she would like to, as many as they deserved. Even as she did so, she was uncertain who exactly she was lighting them for. For the villagers, or for those whose deaths had come later? The question unsettled her, and she let her hand fall away, clenching at her side. The pressure helped ground her, where she had been flying away. _Focus,_ she whispered to herself. _Remember._

It would be so easy to stay here. That was what she had thought, the first time she had lived through this. It would be a good death. Better than she perhaps deserved. But even then, she would not allow herself to die. That had been what Marjolaine wanted.

And _there_ was a name she hadn't thought of in years. The expected curdle of pain was muffled. Too many years had gone by, too much heartache and gladness for it to sting as it once had. She prodded at it, the way you would at a missing tooth with your tongue, mapping out the edges of it. It had been a long time since she had given herself the luxury of thinking about her past. Best not to. Maybe, she thought slowly, that was what this was about. Forcing herself to confront those very things. If so, the Maker's sense of humor needed work.

She was shaken out of her brooding by the soft touch of a hand at her shoulder. Leliana started, hand twitching towards her blade before she deliberately relaxed. The touch was achingly familiar, and had to fight not to lean into it. Because Amleda did not remember her. Because Amleda was not _her_  Amleda, if ever she had been. Because Amleda was dead.

_And who told you that?_

"Are you alright?" Amleda was smiling, but her brows were pinched in concern. "We don't have to hurry off, if you need a minute." She paused, looking towards the candles. "Are you- have you lost someone at Ostagar?"

The question was close enough to the truth that Leliana felt her throat close up. She nodded stiffly.

"Was it that warden you spoke of? Who you owe a favor to?"

Leliana near choked on a laugh, and brought a hand up to drag down her face. "Forgive me, but. The loss is still too fresh for words," she said quietly, and did not look at Amleda's face. She did not wish to see pity, or, worse, understanding. Not from her. 

Amleda stood silently beside her for a time. She did not remove her hand, which Leliana was both grateful for and not. And then she did. Took it away, leaving Leliana's shoulder feeling cold, and cleared her throat to tell the others that they were moving on.

"Were you at Ostagar?" Alistair asked as they walked, coming up beside her. He tried to sound casual about it, but the clear need in his voice was obvious. He ached for a connection to what he had lost. That was something she knew very well. "I didn't see you there."

"No," Leliana said, looking straight ahead at their destination. "I have... heard stories from survivors, but I was here." 

"Oh." Alistair went quiet. 

Feeling guilty, Leliana tilted her head towards him. "If you want, I can tell you them, but. Later." 

"Yes! Oh, yes!" Alistair brightened. "Anything you have would be- would be amazing. More than enough. Thank you, so much."

Leliana had to turn her face away again before he saw her expression. Nodded wordlessly as they came up beside Sten's gibbet as Amleda released him. "Do you promise not to kill me in my sleep?" Amleda asked, beaming a smile up at the far taller Sten.

"You would not need to be asleep for me to kill you."

"Good enough for me!" Amleda chirped, to a general outcry from the others. Leliana was not paying attention. She was looking back at Lothering. Wondering what would happen to those souls who would die a second time. She supposed it would be much the same as herself, who had died many times. Some loudly, others with a sigh that was as easily lost as the small joys Amleda and the others had brought Lothering before it fell. Did it really matter, what they had done here, when no one but them would remember? She'd have said yes, in the old days, but looking about her now, she wasn't so sure.


	4. Chapter 4

Leliana couldn't quite manage to resist turning her head to watch Lothering growing smaller in the distance. She'd grown quiet, finding it hard to speak around a tightness in her throat that tasted of salt and metal. Looking back at what had once been her home in what felt another life (now more than ever), she was faced with the unavoidable question of how different it truly was. Or too much the same, perhaps. They said you could never go home, but before now, she'd never had a proper home to return to. Not one that was truly hers. With that, came a slow, creeping dread tinged with thoughts she did not care to examine. Not now, and hopefully not ever. This was a dream, she reminded herself fiercely, and dreams could not be ruined. They could not fail because of what she did or did not do, they simply were. 

She gradually became aware of a distant pain in her palms. She'd been squeezing her hands too tightly, and made herself consciously relax. Dream or not, she hadn't been so weak as that in... too long. Long enough that she bit back a curse between her teeth, and looked up to see a familiar cart flanked by even more familiar faces and, between them, a tangled knot of darkspawn. There, at least, was an excuse for the revulsion and fear she'd had since she'd awoken, and she was grateful for it. Darkspawn were a clear and present target she could hit and hit and hit again, and maybe with it there would be some measure of satisfaction.

There wasn't. 

Her bow was in her hands and strung with an arrow in a smooth, fluid motion, but it did not bring the comfort it usually did. Here, now, it made things too real. Too close. She had been distracted during the battle in the inn, too focused on Amleda, but it was very different, now. She felt the strain in her muscles as she pulled back the string, the soft sound of her breaths lost in gibbering, wordless growls that she had hoped to never hear again. What dream was this detailed, this visceral in the sounds and, Maker, the smells? She shot off an arrow, the next already in her hand when it took a hurlock between the eyes. 

_Breathe, Leliana,_ came a half remembered voice, smooth and rolling with laughter she'd once ached to hear. Now, it set her teeth on edge.  _No one will be impressed if you kill the tree behind your target._

Leliana's mouth curled in on itself. She missed. The arrow went wide, clipping the nearby genlock and spinning them about before lodging itself in a pillar. She hissed out a soft curse and strung the next. She never missed. This dream had gone from irritating to outright insulting. Her next shot was better, but still drifted to the left. Killed her target, a genlock who'd been bounding towards where Morrigan had been halfway through a spell, but it was an amateur mistake. 

She lowered her bow, seeing that the battle was over, and forced a smile to distract from the shaking in her hands. No one appeared to notice, too busy hurrying over to where Bodahn and Sandal peeked from behind their cart with relieved smiles. She supposed she shouldn't have been surprised. They were very good, these memories of her friends, but they didn't know her well enough to know the difference. Or at all.

She did not have to force a smile when she approached Bodahn and Sandal. She had only fond memories of the pair, and was grateful that here, at least, there was no disconcerting changes to compare them with. She hadn't seen either of them in years. Usually, she regretted that, but for once it came as a relief. "A pleasure to meet you, mister..."

"Bodahn is the name!" The merchant was clearly still giddy from adrenaline, but that was not to say he wasn't too different the rest of the time. "And may I just say, it is a real pleasure to be traveling with a group such as yourselves."

"Oh?" Morrigan asked dryly, tipping her head to the side so she could wrinkle her nose at Alistair, who scowled back uncertainly, not sure what the punchline was, but expecting one. "If you are to believe the rumors, you travel with a group of traitors and murderers. That pleases you?"

Bodahn waved his hand over Alistair's squawked outrage. "Madam," he said with a toothy grin, "if you keep the darkspawn away from me and mine, I would be a character witness before Andraste herself."

Morrigan sniffed, halfway between a laugh and a sneer, and turned back to Alistair as they walked. "Did you hear that?" She asked, "We now have one dwarven merchant to pit his word against that of your Loghain-"

"He's not mine!"

"-and his army. I am all aquiver with excitement. Surely, the cause is all but won, now."

" _Anyway_ ," Amleda said loudly to Leliana as she walked backwards, choosing to ignore Alistair's sputters and the soft chuckles that followed, "You know," she said with that disarming smile that had always meant something else was going on behind the question, "you never actually asked what our plan was."

Leliana gave an easy shrug, knowing a trap when she heard it. "I have a few guesses," she said with downcast eyes, "but I was waiting for you tell me."

That got her a puzzled look bordering on suspicious, Amleda's heavy brows drawing together. Leliana looked away with a smile and spread her hands. "In the chantry," she said, drawing on words from long years ago, "there is a certain word used for people too impatient for things to move at their own pace."

Amleda looked torn between what question she wanted to ask first, and settled for, "Okay, I'll bite. What's the word?"

"Impatient."

Amleda let out a bark of surprised laughter, drawing the attention of Morrigan and Alistair where they were bickering nearby. "Fair enough. But I didn't pin you for someone that put much weight behind the chant."

"Because I kill people?" Leliana's turned her smile into her cowl. It was too easy to fall into old, familiar patterns, and she had to remember that all too soon, she would wake up and this would all be gone, fading away the way all dreams did in the end. Like love. Her dimples faded, but the smile remained. "When has that ever stopped anyone? Many kill in the name of faith, as I'm sure you're aware. As it turns out, 'do you have a fondness for sharp objects' is nowhere on the list of questions they ask you when you are confirmed as a lay sister." It was too late for them to confirm with the revered mother now, and it wasn't technically a lie. That was how the best deceptions were made, after all. Changing just a few details from the truth was far easier to remember than some wild claim. That, she'd learned in a far different school.

"You were a lay sister?" It came from both Alistair and Amleda, and she closed her eyes so that they would not see them roll. She didn't remember this much skepticism the first time around, at least not about that. About her vision, yes, but that was another thing entirely.

"Is it so surprising, that I should choose a life of seclusion and contemplation?"

"You carry yourself as one experienced with death." Sten. Leliana shrugged, opening her eyes again only to look ahead, to where the imperial highway fell away into the wilds. 

"I wasn't always a lay sister. Were you always this nosy?"

"Yes."

Leliana snorted a laugh. "I'm afraid that you can't skip ahead in the book of my life. That would ruin all of the suspense." She chose not too look up at a sudden noise from Amleda, though she bit down on another chuckle.

"You distracted me!" Amleda accused, sounding delighted.

"I did. Aren't I a scamp?"

"That's one word for it," someone muttered, and Leliana again chose not to look, simply let her hand drop to rub at Cookie's ears. She still didn't know if this dream was a punishment or a gift, though she suspected, looking at where Amleda had bent close to Morrigan, that it could be both. Regardless of whether this came from the Maker or a demon, sometimes their methods were hard to tell apart until long afterwards. She hoped, turning her eyes away from where Morrigan lifted a hand to toy with a lock of hair, that she never could.

 


	5. Chapter 5

The first few hours of their march were uneventful enough that Leliana allowed her mind to drift along well worn pathways. From their direction, it looked like they were headed towards the mage tower and all that lay within, and Leliana allowed herself a few brief moments to think on all that had happened within those walls, both good and bad. Along with it came the expected guilt of associating the site of such misery and despair with the first time Amleda had held her hand, though the context hadn't exactly been romantic. At all. Still, it was difficult to banish such thoughts entirely, when she had had so little to cling to, and even now…

"I cannot help but notice, lay sister," Amleda said after some time had passed in comfortable silence, startling Leliana out of her thoughts, "that you haven't even asked where we're going, or why."

Leliana forced her lips to quirk into a small smile and looked away, back towards the unbroken line where the sky met the road. "Does it truly matter?"

Amleda made a noise that made Leliana's heart clench. It had been so long since she'd heard it, she had forgotten all about it. Hearing it now made her wonder if this dream really was filling in long forgotten details, or if she would even know the difference anymore if it was invented wholecloth. "I'd say it does, yes. You aren't the slightest bit curious about something that very well may kill you?"

"Well," Leliana said slowly, drawing out the syllable as she stepped around a fallen tree in order to give herself more time to think, "certain recent events, combined with the presence of grey wardens, lead me to the belief that everyone may very well die if I don't. Was that incorrect?"

"No," Amleda said, sounding very much like she wished it was otherwise.

Leliana shrugged with a studied casualness. "You," she said with a gentleness that certainly wasn't aimed at herself, "have not even seen thirty winters, have you?"

"What does that have to do with anything?"

It had to do with far more than the current conversation, but it was unworthy of her to think such things. Leliana changed what she had been going to say at the last moment to, "Motivations become clouded after a certain age."

"Bullshit." Leliana's head jerked up, hearing another voice decades and hundreds of miles away, but it was Amleda who looked back at her, pockmarked face twisted with exasperation. "People don't get more complicated with age," she snorted. "They just get more convinced that they're special. Unique."

"And you aren't?" Leliana was genuinely curious. "I thought that was a transgression of the young."

Now it was Amleda's turn to toss a grin at her. There was that gap between her front teeth that had always drawn her attention, even on the worst days, and past it, bubbling laughter. "It is, but what do you think happens to all the young and self assured mounds of shit when they grow up? You think it just magically gets cured by experience? No. Sorry to disappoint you," she smiled, coming close to curve a calloused fingertip beneath Leliana's chin, making her breath get caught somewhere between her lungs and her teeth, "but people are the same, whether they're twenty-five or..." She flicked her eyes up and down Leliana, and she felt a discomfiting mix of self conscious and a little thrill of excitement that had her give a cough and turn her head sharply to avoid those sparkling brown eyes. "Experienced."

Leliana's face grew hot, and she resisted looking at the smug expression she knew she would see on Amleda's face and instead hurried her steps to catch up with Morrigan. She was followed by a peal of delighted laughter, and Leliana did her best to look completely at ease when she greeted Morrigan. Looking at her raised eyebrows, though, she knew she'd failed. "Feeling a trifle under the weather, Andrastrian?" Morrigan's smile was slow and knowing, and Leliana huffed.

"You don't know everything, you know," she muttered, and was answered by a low hum that made Leliana's hands curl tight.

"Do I not? Please, regale me with those things that have escaped my notice."

"The other half of your shirt, perhaps," Leliana said archly, not because she truly had any negative opinions about how Morrigan dressed -far from it- but more as a simple distraction. That, too, failed, as Morrigan gave a laugh that seemed to roll up from her toes, low and amused and curling in Leliana's belly like mulled cider.

"Been looking for it, have you? Well, I can assure you that you will not find it between my breasts, though I am certain that would not stop you from looking."

Leliana sputtered and started to protest. Looking at Morrigan right then was a mistake, and Leliana threw her hands up. "I am not a dirty old woman!" It only occurred to her after the fact that maybe half shouting it was a mistake, when the others started to snicker and then to laugh.

"I don't know if I would use those words exactly," Alistair piped up from further on ahead, and she scowled at his back, forgetting for once all the years and silences that lay between them.

"No," Leliana warned, holding up a finger to point at his back.

"I," Alistair said with a clear and obvious smile in his voice as he crossed his hands behind his head, "would have gone for subtlety. Tact."

"Do not."

"But I think the classics are the best. You yourself said you were a lay sister, who am I to doubt you?"

Leliana’s ochre brown skin deepened as she blushed, only to stop in her tracks and gape when Sten broke his silence to say with such a flat, humorless tone that you'd have been excused for thinking he wasn't teasing if you did not know him well, "I have yet to see any evidence to the contrary.”

Leliana started and stopped speaking a number of times bore she managed, “Well!” She said in a tone of the utmost offended dignity that had  Amleda laughing into her hand, “Now that we have established that everyone here has no respect for a poor, simple lay sister-”

“Is any part of that sentence true,” Morrigan drawled, which made Leliana stick her nose even higher in the air.

“-I think it is time to speak to who is surely the most wise among us.” The forest of raised eyebrows turned into scoffs and laughter when Leliana bent to ruffle Cookie’s ears. “You would never betray me, would you, girl?” She crooned. Cookie’s whole back end wriggled as she wagged her stub of a tail, and bounced around Leliana as she started to walk, delighted with the attention. “You would never think to question the motives of a pure and innocent soul, would you?”

Ahead of her, Amleda snorted out a laugh and swung around to start walking backwards, linking her hands behind her head. “Mabari are far smarter than your average noble,” she said. “So, if anything, Cookie is even more curious about what you aren’t saying than I am.”

“We are heading towards the building climax,” Leliana said serenely, and lifted a finger to close Amleda’s open mouth as she stood, face screwed up in a dumbfounded expression.

“What?”

“In tales,” Leliana said without looking back, “every major event is preceded by those seemingly inconsequential moments that come before it.”

“You do realize that a climax also means-”

“In due time,” Leliana smiled, leaving the sentence to hang for longer than was perhaps necessary before she went on, “all language changes to adapt.”

“Like you?” Morrigan was watching her far too closely, and Leliana turned her head away, tucking her cowl a little closer to hide her expression.

“I am a storyteller at heart,” she allowed. “And I have observed many changes in my time.”

“Oh?” It was Alistair, this time, and Leliana could not fault him for being hungry for information, not when so much of his own had been taken from him. “Do you have any tales of where we are?”

Leliana flicked her eyes around the rolling hills that surrounded the imperial highway. “The wilds have many,” she said, “of which few are mine to tell.”

“That sounds half an answer, lay sister,” Morrigan said from where she paced beside Leliana, covering more ground with her long legs than Leliana could, forcing her to either hurry to keep back, or drop back and thereby force Morrigan to slow. She chose the latter. Petty, but satisfying.

“This may surprise you,” Leliana said, following Amleda’s back with her eyes, “but not all stories are finished. And those that are, do not belong wholly to me. They are…” She made an aborted gesture with her hands that was not missed, nor was the direction of her gaze. “Far more complicated and far more simple than that.”

“You never answer anything directly, do you?” Alistair said, half a laugh, and Leliana almost laughed with him.

“And where would the fun be in that?"


	6. Chapter 6

It was a little more than ten days on foot from Lothering to Kinloch Hold, a distance which Leliana grew to resent with every passing mile. Through some unholy magic all of its own, it was passing both too slowly and far, far too quickly all at once. She didn't know whether to try to desperately hold onto every second of every minute as the gifts she knew them to be, or to try to mentally rush them along. More and more, she was leaning towards the latter; as much as her eyes yet lingered on Amleda and her companions, it was becoming increasingly difficult to convince herself that she was still dreaming. The alternative hardly bore thinking about, but Leliana was no fool, as much as she might sometimes wish she were. The only explanation left to her was magic, and a magic that was hardly benign, at that.

Someone had wished her out of the way so that they could get to Divine Victoria, of that much she was still convinced, but the details were rather harder to pin down. She spent the better part of the week and a half they spent traveling ruminating on them, and never did come to an answer that satisfied her. Later she would regret becoming as withdrawn and snappish as she always seemed to when considering a problem, but during the march itself she was too consumed with fear to be concerned with how she snapped off one terse comment after another whenever her contemplation was disturbed, until eventually her companions began to leave her to her own devices unless she approached them first. A rare feat.

"Ah, and here I thought I was the shapeshifter!" Morrigan smirked to her on the final day of travel, startling Leliana out of her brooding and back down to Thedas with a definitive thud.

"What?" Leliana's face twisted in a frown. "Forgive me, but..."

"Have you not noticed your own moods, sister Leliana?" Amleda asked her with an innocent little smile that Leliana knew from long association was anything but, and eyed the pair of them suspiciously. She had more than an inkling, yes, but she was far too committed to admit to it now, and so she shrugged wordlessly.

Morrigan was only to happy to fill her in on the punchline, of course. "A bear travels with us!"

Leliana's puzzled frown deepened into a scowl as her companions burst into laughter. "Surely I haven't been _that_ bad," she muttered. She felt a twinge of dismay on seeing the looks she received in answer.

"Leliana," Amleda told her seriously as she drew an arm round Leliana's shoulders that Leliana did her very best to pretend not to notice as much as she did, "you've been growling like you were just woken up from your winter hibernation with a stick attached to a wasp's nest, which itself was attached to glue." Leliana gaped at her, which was answered with a very serious expression. "Carried by a genlock."

Leliana tried to maintain her own scowl, but soon gave in to laughter. "Alright, so I may have been a little bit like a bear," she admitted with wrinkled nose.

"If by 'a little' you truly mean 'a lot,' then yes, I agree with you perfectly," said Morrigan, which got Amleda laughing all over again. That in turn caught Alistair's attention, from where he had been walking up ahead with Sten and Cookie.

"Who's telling jokes without me?" He called back piteously. "I thought we were all agreed by committee that all jokes should be saved until I'm present!"

"Only the jokes about you!" Morrigan called back cheerfully, which got her a rude gesture in return that Leliana hadn't remembered that Alistair knew. She stopped in her tracks, blinking, as Morrigan smothered an unmistakable giggle behind her hand.

"My apologies," Leliana said once she'd started walking again, breezing past Morrigan and Amleda with a sunny smile. "I did not mean to take up your valuable growling time, Morrigan." Morrigan made a rude noise behind her that turned to low chuckles, a sound Leliana had sorely missed, and wanted to hear again, and often.

To that end, she tried her best not to focus on the problem of her presence here too much as they closed the final hours to Kinloch Hold, but she couldn't help it entirely. If she had truly been transported to the past,she wondered as Lake Calenhad began to glimmer on the horizon like all of the false promises of tomorrow, where was the benefit for the mage responsible? The only possible conclusion to be drawn, she decided, was that the mysterious mage wished to somehow alter the past. That, more than anything, was what she found troubling. The inquisitor had filled her in on the false future they had born witness to thanks to time magic, and she was less than eager to see such a future come to pass thanks to her own ignorance.

Dorian had been thoughtful enough to explain the dangers of time magic to her in the excruciating detail possible,and Leliana found herself gnawing on the inside of her cheek on the final approach to the lake and to Kinloch Hold beyond. She was so caught up in her own thoughts that she'd almost forgotten what awaited them inside entirely. Until, that was, her gaze fell upon the templar standing guard on the rickety dock. Leliana's eyes fell half-lidded, distrust adding a certain flavor to the wariness she'd long since drawn close to herself like a cloak.

"Aren't you comforted to find yourself back among your religion's private army?" Morrigan asked her upon noticing Leliana's silence. Leliana offered one of her usual automatic smiles in lieu of an answer, which Morrigan did not seem to find satisfactory. "Come now, surely you hold an opinion on the templars, lay sister?"

She felt more than saw the interested gazes of the rest of her companions fall upon her, and shrugged. "My opinion is nowhere near as important as yours. As an apostate, your life is more affected by them than my could ever be." She lied easily, without apparent effort. They did not know her well enough to catch her at it, but the answer alone drew an aggravated noise from Morrigan.

" _Everyone's_ lives are affected by the chantry and its dogs," she snorted, "whether you will admit to it or not. Your opinions say much about you, as does your silence."

"Perhaps my opinions are simply not relevant yet." Leliana made sure not to glance aside when Amleda shifted, watching her with an expression she chose not to see.

"Not everyone's lips have a firm friendship with their heads," Alistair drawled, startling Leliana. She'd expected Amleda to speak, not him, and turned to see him approach from the end of the dock, where he had apparently been in discussion with the templar. Leliana had chosen to immediately ignore the templar's existence, knowing that no one would approach until Amleda herself chose to do so. That Alistair had, instead, had troubling implications.

Things were already changing, and it was impossible to say if it was because of what she was doing differently, or if her mere presence would have been enough. She cursed silently, wishing she'd payed more attention to Dorian's rambling lecture on the minutia of time magic. If she had, maybe she'd now what to do now, instead of stand on the grass with her mouth agape and her hands clutching uselessly at the air. Change was already in motion, and she was as helpless to stop it as she ever was. She could direct it, perhaps, but stop it entirely? No, she could not do that.

Morrigan had said something arch back at him, thrusting out her jaw in that way she had that threw her cheekbones into sharp relief, but she was less than inclined to notice either of those things right now. Leliana worried her lower lip between her teeth as she looked past them, out towards Kinloch Hold. She knew what awaited them inside, or at least, what had the last time she’d done this song and dance. Who was to say that it would be at all the same this time?

“I don’t know about all of you,” Amleda said a touch too loudly, breaking through Alistair and Morrigan’s bickering, “but I for one am interested in getting the treaty negotiations over with so we can put this eyesore behind us, aren’t you?”

Leliana didn’t hear the responses the others gave, if any, unable to hear past the rush of blood in her ears as chill fingers bumped up the knobs of her spine, put in mind of nothing so much as an epitaph.


End file.
